nairiporter | Deliberate infection

HIV nurse 'got off too lightly'
http://www.news24.com/News24/South_Africa/News/0,9294,2-7-1442_2090055,00.html

Bushbuckridge - The family of an eight-year-old boy who was deliberately infected with HIV by his stepmother has reacted with dismay to the "lenient" sentence handed down on her.

Pinky Mabuza, 34, was sentenced to five years in jail or a R10 000 fine in Mhala regional court in Bushbuckridge on Tuesday.

Mabuza, a former nursing sister, was convicted of attempted murder late last year for injecting the boy with an HIV-infected needle in 2003. She had pleaded not guilty.

Handing down his sentence in a packed court on Tuesday, magistrate Victor Mathebula told Mabuza that the fact that she was a nurse made her offence even worse.

Community outraged

"You are a professional nurse. You know how terrible it is if a person has HIV/Aids.

"You are aware the community was most disturbed by this case. The community has shown a great outrage for what you have done."

Mathebula agreed with Mabuza's counsel, Adriaan Smuts, that she could be retried for murder if the boy, who is HIV-positive, were to die.

But, he dismissed Smuts's argument that sentencing should be postponed so that the child's condition could be monitored, saying there had been too many postponements already.

The boy's 34-year-old mother, who was in court on Tuesday, expressed shock at Mabuza's sentence, saying it was too lenient.

"My son's life has been changed forever. He can never be normal again, and all the court can do is to sentence her (Mabuza) to such a lenient sentence," said the woman who lives with her son near Bushbuckridge.

"This just shows that justice applies only to poor people - people who are rich do not go to jail," she said, when it emerged that Mabuza had arranged with the court to pay off her fine in instalments.

A woman from her village agreed.

"We have separate justice systems in this country, one for the rich, and the other for poor people.

"In the case of rich people, it is the money that goes to jail," she said.

"But, if you are poor, you go to jail physically. Now this woman is going to get out of jail - to do what, inject other little boys with HIV contaminated blood again?"

Mabuza was convicted in Mkhuhlu magistrate's court on October 4 last year of attempted murder.

Father 'didn't know'

The boy testified via a closed-circuit camera that his stepmother had injected him with a "red liquid" when he visited her and his father in 2003.

Mabuza worked as a nurse at Matikwane Hospital in Bushbuckridge at the time.

The boy's father denied any knowledge of the incident, but confirmed that his son once fell ill while visiting him and that his new wife went with him when they took the child to hospital.

He said his son did not tell him about the injection.